sickly
Americanadjective
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not strong; unhealthy; ailing.
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of, connected with, or arising from ill health.
a sickly complexion.
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marked by the prevalence of ill health, as a region.
the epidemic left the town sickly.
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causing sickness.
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maudlin and insipid; mawkish.
sickly sentimentality.
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faint or feeble, as light or color.
adverb
verb (used with object)
adjective
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disposed to frequent ailments; not healthy; weak
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of, relating to, or caused by sickness
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(of a smell, taste, etc) causing revulsion or nausea
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(of light or colour) faint or feeble
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mawkish; insipid
sickly affectation
adverb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of sickly
1300–50; Middle English siklich, sekly (adj.). See sick 1, -ly
Explanation
If you're frequently ill, or often under the weather, you're sickly. A sickly child tends to miss a lot of school. Sickly people aren't in perfect health — they are prone to coming down with illnesses, or they just generally don't feel well. You can also describe someone as appearing sickly, if their faces are pale and unhealthy-looking. This "habitually ailing" meaning dates from the fourteenth century, and for a brief time it was also used to mean "causing illness."
Vocabulary lists containing sickly
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The subtropical southern Japanese region boasts some of the world's most biodiverse hubs of normally multicoloured coral, but a 2024 marine heatwave created "graveyards" of ghostly pale or sickly brown organisms.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
Working with his regular cinematographer Oleg Mutu, Loznitsa gives this prison — and authoritarianism itself — a sickly luster without ever denying its wretched stench.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2026
Modi, as the Italian was affectionately called, was urbane, well-groomed and handsome, while Soutine was destitute, sickly and notoriously unwashed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
But it’s not wrong that the movement is starting to look a little sickly.
From Salon ● Nov. 24, 2025
Majestic as she was, the poor creature’s skin looked too pale and sickly.
From "Dactyl Hill Squad" by Daniel José Older
He’s big, menacing and worthy to own, but I would have preferred his older, sicklier version in which he acted as a caretaker for Professor X in the film “Logan.”
From Washington Times ● May 29, 2019
The Greek lamp of Monarchism, which has been burning with an ever sicklier flame, went out.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Incorruptible's complexion looked sicklier than its wont, for mortification had turned him green outright.
From The Trampling of the Lilies by Sabatini, Rafael
The sickly seamstress in the narrow city lane tends her box of sicklier mignonette.
From Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country by Smith, Alexander
The sickly gaslight throws a sicklier glare over the narrow, unpaved streets.
From Justice in the By-Ways, a Tale of Life by Adams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
It’s a family joke that they have the sickliest pets in history.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 15, 2021
A bunged-up court system made foreclosure all but impossible, so owners of even the sickliest of companies could spend lavishly without fear of repercussions.
From Economist ● Apr. 19, 2018
This is also a bank that marketed complex derivatives to Europe’s sickliest bank, Monte dei Paschi in Italy.
From New York Times ● Dec. 30, 2016
Healthiest section of the U. S. from the typhoid aspect is New England; sickliest, the east south-central region.
From Time Magazine Archive
These great rushes, sometimes ten feet high, die every year like the sickliest flowers, and break and are washed away.
From The Naturalist on the Thames by Cornish, C. J. (Charles John)
In the middle of a second act seance various ectoplasmic entities wander about the darkness sicklied o'er with the pale cast of greenish spotlights.
From Time Magazine Archive
The town -- the greater Bay Area, for that matter -- is sicklied o'er with restaurants.
From Time Magazine Archive
They are Reds who have been, if not sicklied o'er, at least noticeably bleached, if not by the pale cast of thought, then by the bright sun of circumstance.
From Time Magazine Archive
Oh, nothing, I'm just a little sicklied o'er ...
From Time Magazine Archive
Thy mind with sin is sicklied o'er, From thy first youth ne'er seen before.
From The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Griffith, Ralph T. H. (Ralph Thomas Hotchkin)
And therefore West, after an hour of delightful tête-à-tête in the charming little back parlor, stiffened himself up, his brow sicklying o'er with the pale cast of disagreeable thought, and began to make it.
From Queed by Crosby, Raymond Moreau
They believe that on public occasions the chuprassies have sometimes the power of sicklying them o'er with the pale cast of neglect.
From Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series by Aberigh-Mackay, George Robert
He imagined the first beginnings of suspicion; he saw it filming the eyes of his acquaintances, then of his friends, and at last sicklying over the face even of his brother Silas.
From Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment 1898 by Bellamy, Edward
Growing quite staid in manner, the weight of India adding gravity to his looks, sicklying his young face o'er with pale cast of thought.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 by Various
No sicklying taint of sorrow overlies the lucid lake of liquid love, upon which, hand in hand, Aline and I are to float into eternity!
From The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan by Gilbert, W. S. (William Schwenck), Sir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
